Chapter 259: Competitors

Tang Qiu heard President Chen's words, her expression somewhat puzzled.

Lanpian, Rotten Film?

How are the homophones for these two so similar?

But she quickly shook her head; President Chen wouldn't curse his own company, would he?

The "Lan" in Lanpian represents the vast, boundless sky, representing President Chen's grand ambitions for the film industry.

How could she have such wild thoughts!

Tang Qiu secretly reflected on herself, then looked up at President Chen.

"I understand, President Chen. I will get the company registered as soon as possible."

"Also, the elderly song and dance troupe you mentioned can be completely integrated into the performing arts department under Lanpian Film and Television; there is no need to establish a new company."

"Good, then I'll leave this matter to you."

Chen Mo nodded. Integrating them would make management easier later on, and either way, they were both going to lose money.

Whether they were planned together or split into two companies,

there was no difference.

After giving his instructions, Chen Mo didn't linger and left the coffee shop directly.

However, he didn't head straight back. Instead, he had Yang Dahai drive him to several other coffee shops. Since he was conducting an inspection, it was only natural that inspecting more shops would yield a more accurate picture.

Half a day passed, and finally, this round of coffee shop inspections concluded.

He had inspected a total of 12 coffee shops. According to the descriptions from the managers of 10 of them, apart from a slight increase in customers during the Chinese New Year period, the coffee shops were currently still in a state of loss.

After clarifying this, Chen Mo was finally relieved.

Currently, there were already 20 coffee shops in Jiang City; it was already in a saturated state.

There weren't even that many Starbucks. For the locations of the last few coffee shops, because he couldn't find a Starbucks nearby, he had no choice but to select a few locations without one.

Having confirmed through his inspection that Nanhe Coffee was in a saturated state, he could now rest assured and expand Nanhe Coffee to other cities.

Of course, among these money-losing coffee shops, there were two exceptions.

The Maid Cafe and the Cat Cafe.

When he had just checked, the Maid Cafe was already fully booked for the next 5 days.

Because the Cat Cafe was already full of customers, people had even started queuing outside.

In the middle of winter, queuing outside just to pet cats—this was something he couldn't understand.

The key was that they weren't even afraid of their hands freezing; they were just standing there taking selfies with their phones.

However, no matter how popular these two coffee shops were, the customer traffic and operating hours were limited, so the number of customers they could serve in a day was restricted.

So, regardless, the combined revenue of these two coffee shops would at most be around 1 million.

This 1 million was nothing compared to the losses of the entire coffee shop chain.

Moreover, he had stipulated that at most one Maid Cafe and one Cat Cafe could be opened in each major city.

In this way, even if the Maid Cafe and Cat Cafe were profitable, they wouldn't have any impact on the overall losses of Nanhe Coffee.

At most, it would just reduce the losses by a little over 1 million.

Sitting in the car, confirmed that Nanhe Coffee had not slipped out of his control, Chen Mo instructed Yang Dahai to drive back.

…

Nanhe Coffee.

Song Xia and Su Dan returned to the shop with heavy hearts.

As soon as the two found a seat and sat down, the manager walked over.

"Manager, President Chen came by this morning."

"Did President Chen have any business when he came by?"

Song Xia was startled upon hearing this and hurriedly looked at the manager.

"He just asked a quick question about where you had gone, and then he didn't say anything else. Oh! He also asked about the operating status of the coffee shop."

"Attorney Tang was also here, and I saw them seemingly discussing something."

Speaking of which, the manager asked nervously.

"Manager, do you think President Chen is talking to Attorney Tang about giving up on Nanhe Coffee because it's been losing money all this time?"

Listening to the manager's worried words, Song Xia and Su Dan exchanged glances.

Such a situation was not impossible.

"You go back to work first. I will go and find out from President Chen about this matter. Don't spread this around until there is definite news."

Su Dan said to the manager.

After the manager left, Su Dan looked at Song Xia and said in a grave tone.

"If President Chen finds out about what's coming next, I'm afraid he really might choose to give up on Nanhe Coffee."

"I don't know. I'll go find President Chen tomorrow to ask. This is something he needs to know."

Song Xia shook her head and let out a long sigh.

She had stayed home for 3 days during the Spring Festival and then returned immediately.

During the time she had been back, she and Teacher Su had not been idle; they had started the inspection plan they had scheduled before the new year.

So for these past few days, they had basically been coming to the coffee shop to hand over some tasks or hold a small meeting, and then they would go directly to inspect other coffee shops in Jiang City.

The first few days were fine, and they did indeed gain some experience.

But in the last few days, they discovered a problem: a few new coffee shops had opened in Jiang City, but they were still under renovation and had not officially opened for business.

However, judging by the decoration style, they discovered that these were not traditional coffee shops, but Cat Cafes.

After all, what traditional coffee shop would set up things like cat climbing frames in the shop?

The only possibility was that after the Cat Cafe became popular, someone saw the business opportunity and started preparing to open their own Cat Cafes.

Since discovering this phenomenon, they had paid special attention to it.

It was fine until they paid attention; once they did, they discovered a problem: there were actually five coffee shops in all of Jiang City preparing to set up Cat Cafes, and two of them had basically finished renovations. It was estimated that in a few days, they would be officially open for business.

And there was also a Maid Cafe currently under renovation.

Once these Cat Cafes opened for business, it would definitely have a huge impact on Nanhe Coffee's Cat Cafe and would certainly siphon off a large portion of customer traffic.

Currently, Nanhe Coffee was relying on these two special coffee shops to have some revenue. If the revenue from these two coffee shops decreased, it would undoubtedly be a huge blow to Nanhe Coffee.

They didn't know what President Chen would think after learning this news.

Would he give up on Nanhe Coffee because of this?

Although President Chen had always stated that it was normal for coffee shops to lose money in the early stages, it had already been nearly half a year, and Nanhe Coffee was still in a state of loss. Furthermore, the two special coffee shops that were originally profitable might see their income shrink after the emergence of competition.

Combining all these factors, it was hard to guarantee that President Chen wouldn't consider giving up on Nanhe Coffee.

"Then I'll leave this matter to you. I will try my best to think of a way to see how we can make Nanhe Coffee profitable."

"From the inspections these past few days, I feel I've already gained some ideas."

Su Dan said calmly. No matter what, as long as President Chen didn't say the words about giving up on Nanhe Coffee, she would not give up.

During the Chinese New Year period, although they hadn't made Nanhe Coffee profitable, overall, many customers had still been attracted to Nanhe Coffee.